A key conceit of spiritual study is that we don’t really exist – at least not in the sense most of us imagine, which is to say a distinct body, name, personality, history, beliefs, etc. There is no “me,” per se, just a share of the same total consciousness that permeates everything. At least that’s how I interpret it though the human brain and its three-dimensional limitations isn’t much help in that area.
The other day while reflecting on this I found myself thinking about others, about how they become who they are. In particular I was thinking about those occasional few who drive me a bit nuts from time to time. I asked myself, “Why is he/she like that?” and “Why can’t he/she see what he/she is doing?” This is a favorite hobby of virtually every human, isn’t it? Regardless of your sex, ethnicity, religion (or non-religion), your political persuasion, and so on, you can’t help but judge and criticize (overtly or not) the lives and behaviors of others, especially those on “the other side” of whatever it is you identify with. Online message boards are wonderful expressions of this “us vs. them” mentality. The point being, all humans engage in this and are loathe to admit it because, well, it’s not terribly flattering.
So as I looked at those who annoy me I used the spiritual precept of us all being One and asked, “What if I was him?” What if I had been born into his body instead of mine, to his parents, to his background, to his upbringing? What if I quite literally walked in his shoes? Would I not behave exactly as him?
The heck with it, let’s take this a bit deeper. What if I was born into the life and body of America’s Public Enemy #1, Osama Bin Laden? Or, if that’s too personal, Hitler? Mao? Pol Pot? Idi Amin? Choose your dastardly villain and imagine yourself being born into his body, to his parents, to his life and times. Would you not behave as did he? If not, why not? What part of “you” would recalibrate the system?
In fact, what part of “you” would be born into “him” in the first place? Is there a kernel of you in there, a seed, an essence of you that could be “born” into another? When we wag our fingers at another, isn’t that precisely what we’re saying? That if “I” was “you” I wouldn’t have done that! Really? “Who” says?
There is a reason that mystics like Jesus counseled us not to judge “lest we be judged” because – voila! – perhaps we are indeed judging ourselves. Which is precisely why those folks who have experienced near-death experiences tell us that during their life reviews in the Light they experienced the pain they caused others – that there is no distinction between the two. That we really should be doing unto others as we’d do unto ourselves since, well, we ARE doing unto ourselves.
This train of thought also led me to the reminder, yet again, that there really is no “me” or “you,” that we’re fictions, amalgamations of thought and nothing more – drops of consciousness in a sea of unified consciousness. But that’s for another post.
